A Spider in the Gate
by Lady Russell Holmes
Summary: (xover with Stargate SG-1. You don't need to watch that to like this story) When Spider-Man rescues a girl, he never expects to follow her this far. (No romance, I promise.) Chapter 3 is up and Chapter 2 is fixed. Thanks, Jewel59!
1. Hostage

(Disclaimer: I do not own Spiderman. I do own my Spiderman jeans. I do not own Doc Ock, though I'd like to. That doesn't matter because he's probably not going to be in this fic. I just like to mention him. grin)

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Spider In The Gate

Chapter 1: **Hostage**

8/31/04

This is what he loved. Webswinging from one sky-scraper to another. He loved the smooth arcs, the tight snap as he let go of one web to fire another, that heart-taking weightlessness of the deep, downward swing. He could race from Coney Island to the Brooklyn Bridge in less than 10 minutes, but this morning he was taking is easy, taking his time, relishing the clean, cool breeze against his mask. For grins, he swung past the Daily Bugle and waved jauntily at J.J. Jameson, who scowled and dropped his cigar. Yes, life was just fine this morning for your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

All too soon, however, gravity beckoned. Spider-Man might be content to webswing all day long, but Peter Parker had a 7:30 class and an 8:45 dentist appointment. A few long swings brought him back to the alley where he had stashed his street clothes. He alighted on a second-story fire-escape, but before he could retrieve the webbed bundle hidden there, his spider-sense caught him. He was head-up and alert an instant before he heard the sirens. He dropped down into the alley only to leap back up the wall when a blue sportscar, barely under control, careened past him, closely followed by for black and white police cars, lights and sirens blazing. The sportscar ricocheted from side to side in the narrow alley, scraping sparks from the brick walls before screeching though a sharp turn onto the busy street beyond, barely missing colliding with a bright yellow Volkswagen.

Spider-Man leapt onto the roof of the second police car as it streaked by. From within, he heard snatches of the squawking radio. "East on 93rd... Reports of a hostage... Officers down... freak's on your car, Jake!" Deciding he'd heard enough, Spider-Man shot out a line to a cornice a block away and jumped, letting the car's momentum speed his swing. He dodged around the first chase car and caught up effortlessly with the sportscar, landing lightly on its roof.

The occupants hadn't heard him, which gave Spider-Man time and a tactical advantage. Crouching on the roof, he peered upside down into the rear window. A heavyset, bearded man filled the passenger seat, staring resolutely forward as his driver, a younger, clean-shaven man barely older than Peter, steered recklessly through the slower traffic. The hostage was with him.

Inwardly, Spider-Man groaned. The driver had his hostage, a young, pale-featured woman with braided bright hair in his lap, her arms laid over his and her head laid back on his right shoulder. The careful positioning meant two things. First, that the driver knew what he was doing, and what type of risk he was running. With the hostage so close to him, and with her head between his and the driver's side window, no police sharp-shooter would risk a shot. But for a get-away driver to be so worried about a sniper in the first place meant that he was paranoid. Peter knew all too well that smart and paranoid was rarely a good combination in a criminal.

The paranoid driver chose that moment to look over his shoulder. Spider-Man jerked his head up, but too late. He'd been seen. The driver cursed explosively and jerked the wheel, trying to shake off his unwanted passenger. Blessing his sticky fingers, Spider-Man clung on doggedly. The car sped up as it reached a clear stretch, then swerved to the curb and stopped with a suddenness that would have thrown an ordinary man flying. Spider-Man somersaulted onto the hood, staring through the window. The bearded man scowled thunderously, but the driver smiled archly past the girl's fair hair while she goggled at Spider-Man, opening and shutting her mouth like a fish.

The driver let go of the wheel slowly, raising his hands in an apparent gesture of surrender. Spider-Man cocked his head curiously: it was never this easy. His spider-sense gave him only a heart-beat's warning before the man's hands darted, one for the girl's throat, the other for the gun hidden above the sun-visor. Spider-Man lunged forward, driving his fists through the windshield, meaning to web the gun away, but suddenly it was pressed to the back of the girl's head and the driver's finger was tight on the trigger. Peter froze.

"No closer, Spider-Man," said the driver in a whisper. He nudged the girl's head with the barrel. Finally catching up, the police skidded into an enclosure around the sportscar, leaping from their cars to aim guns at the criminals.

"You are surrounded!" shouted a sergeant through a mega-phone. "Release your hostage and come out with your hands up!"

The driver rolled his eyes laconically and shook his head in slight irony. "Tell them that I decline, Spider-Man," he said, whispering again. The girl continued to gasp, clearly too terrified to move. "Repeat everything I say to them, and nothing else. Do you understand me?" Another nudge, harder this time. The girl's head rolled back onto his shoulder, completely limp. No help there. The bearded man had drawn his own gun and trained it on Spider-Man, his face threatening.

"Why not?" said Peter with a lightness that he did not feel. He hated hostage situations. "It's not the first time I've played ventrilo-dummy. Just don't do anything crazy." He held out his hand placatingly, and the finger tightened again on the trigger. "No closer, I said," hissed the driver. "Now tell them no, without moving. Just tell them."

Spider-Man responded to the intensity in the man's eyes. Raising his voice, he spoke to the surrounding force. "The driver says no."

The sergeant with the mega-phone glared at Spider-Man for a moment, then looked back at the car. "We have a negotiator on the way," he called to the driver, ignoring Spider-Man. "We're willing to listen to your demands. What's your name?"

The driver laughed sarcastically. "Tell them that I do not want a negotiator, and I have no demands other than escape."

"So this is a kidnapping, rather than a hostage situation?" asked Spider-Man.

"Of course," demurred the driver wryly. "Now, tell them what I told you."

Resignedly, Spider-Man relayed the message. Sgt. Mega-Phone turned and waved another man away from the barricade, then he called out again. "If you won't talk to a negotiator, who will you talk to? We can get you anyone you want." Spider-Man could see that the man was sweating.

The driver took a moment to think, his eyes never leaving Spider-Man's mask. "I think I'll just keep talking to you," he said quietly. He had not yet spoken louder than a whisper. "Since we're having so much fun already." He winked cruelly and tightened his grip on the hostage's neck. Her eyes widened to full circles as already-strained breathing took on a whistling sound. "Unless you're tired of being a 'ventrilo-dummy'?"

"No, no, no," Spider-Man assured the man earnestly. "I'll talk to you all you want. I'm good at talking. Ask anyone."

"Good. Now, all I want is safe passage away from New York. Tell them I don't want to see another police car inside the city limits. And to help ensure this, Spider-Man, I want you to web every police car here into place, except for those three there." The bearded man gestured to the three police cars that blocked their path. "I want you to move those elsewhere." The driver's tone was offhand and jocose, but his eyes were stone hard and cold. Peter had seen such eyes before. He knew that if this man got away with this girl, she would never be seen again. Not alive, at any rate.

"Gotcha," he said obediently, his mind racing. In apparent submission, he half-stood, crouching on the hood and called out to the tense police. "He wants an escape route, and I'm going to give it to him." He knew that they couldn't see his face, but he winked at Sgt. Mega-Phone anyway.

Abruptly, he shot his foot through the absent windshield, aiming to kick the gun away. An inch from impact, though, he hit a solid something. He looked down to find the bearded man's free hand, the one not aiming a gun at Spider-Man's head, gripping his foot in an iron fist. With a meaningful glare and a bone-grinding squeeze, he released it. As Spider-Man drew it back, his gaze returned to the driver. He couldn't constrain a shudder. If the man's eyes had been stone before, they were ice now. This man was dangerous. Without a word, he moved the gun down from the girl's head and fired. Peter twitched at the echoing report, but it was the girl who bled, a crimson trickle from her shoulder. Her only reaction was a blink at the sound. Behind Spider-Man, the police had reacted to the shot, ratcheting up the tension in the air.

The driver's face softened into nonchalance as the gun pressed once more to the girl's head. "I pull the strings here, Spider-Man. I pull, you dance. Do you understand?" He caressed the girl's jaw with his thumb, staring aloofly at Spider-Man. Dry-mouthed, Spider-Man nodded. "Good. Now, tell the police to stand down, or the next shot goes through her lungs. Or through yours." Again, that infuriating half-smile. "Now, Spider-Man."

Defeated, Spider-Man forced himself to shrug. "Whatever you say, chief. Just don't hurt her again. You hand her over to me, and I'll make sure you get away free and clear." It was a long shot.

It didn't work. "What would be the point, Spider-Man, in leaving without what I came all this way to get?" He held the girl's head up so she could meet Spider-Man's masked gaze. Her eyes were a milky shade of grey, and so wide that they appeared to be perfectly round. She was still doing her fish-out-of-water impersonation, opening her mouth in an even, deliberate rhythm. "Isn't she amazing?" he said with an oddly familiar avidity. Feeling slightly nauseated, Spider-Man recognized it as the feeling he got whenever he made a scientific breakthrough. "Flawed, obviously, but still an incredible find." The bearded man grunted a warning, the first sound that Peter had heard him make, and Driver shot him a glance. "You're right," he said softly. "It's time for us to go, Spider-Man. You have your orders."

Seeing no choice, Spider-Man stood slowly and faced the edgy police. "Please don't shoot me," he said frankly. "I'm supposed to web all of your cars in place so you can't follow him. He says he doesn't want to see another cop car on his way out of the city, or he will shoot her again."

"What's the status of the hostage?" called Sgt. Mega-Phone.

"He shot her in the-!" Spider-Man broke off with a shout as pain streaked up his side. He collapsed to the hood, clutching his ribs. The bearded man lowered his smoking handgun. "That's only a graze," said the driver darkly. "No more talking. This is your last warning, Spider-Man. Just do what I've told you and then get out of my sight." There was no humour left in his soft voice. "Not another word, or I'll kill her."

Gasping, Spider-Man nodded. Holding his side, he stood again, slumping dejectedly. With one hand applying pressure to stop the bleeding, he did as the man had asked, fouling the axles of the police cars with webbing. Too soon, the sportscar had a clear escape route. Hating the situation, Spider-Man stepped back off the car and out of its way. "Thank you, Spider-Man," mouthed the driver with a grin as he raced away, tires squealing.

Slightly stunned, Spider-Man stared after the receding car until he was startled by a hand on his shoulder. Sgt. Mega-Phone stood there, glaring at the car as well. "How's the girl?" he asked gruffly. His badge named him as Michael Stives.

"He shot her through the shoulder," Spider-Man answered absently. "She didn't even move."

"A clean shot?"

"Looked like it. I would have got the gun away from him, but he kept it behind her. I couldn't get a clear shot with my webbing. I couldn't do anything." His voice shook with a quiet helplessness. The sergeant patted his shoulder with rough sympathy, and Spider-Man winced as the motion jarred his bruised rib. Blood was still seeping through his fingers.

"How old are you?" Spider-Man looked at the man, not answering. The man shrugged and withdrew his hand. "I'm just sayin', you win some, you lose some. It happens to all of us. More often to us than you, though. We sure could use a guy like you on the force."

"I'm flattered, buddy, truly, but I'm afraid I've got to decline," retorted Spider-Man. "Besides, I look funny in uniform." He lifted an arm and fired a web-line to a convenient ledge above, but he faltered when the pain in his side flared up again. Blackness teased at the edges of his vision. The graze was deeper than he had thought. Gingerly, he peered at the finger-sized flap of missing skin under his torn suit. "Ouch."

"We've got an ambulance here," offered the sergeant. he seemed gruff, but well-disposed towards costumed vigilantes. "That need stitches."

Peter looked around at the police. Some of them were angrily, and vainly, trying to remove his webbing from their vehicles, but more were watching him with barely-veiled curiosity. Then the sergeant's radio squawked unintelligibly and he reached out again to catch Spider-Man's arm.

"Come and get stitched up, kid. HQ wants you to stick around for a bit, give us a report." Seeing Spider-Man test, about to draw away, he turned to cajoling. "Hey, don't worry. No one's going to try and get under your mask. You just got the best view of the kidnappers and you're the only one he spoke to. Just hang around, answer a few questions, and get that looked at. It can't hurt."

Spider-Man considered his options. With his side in this shape, he was going to have to foot it home, and then seek help as Peter Parker and try to come up with an explanation for the injury that didn't involve a gun. Might as well offer what help he could. He was going to miss his class anyway.

"Sure, buddy," Spider-Man said. "Anything for the boys in blue." He let himself be led to the paramedics and delivered as detailed a summary as he could of the encounter. He spoke through gritted teeth, though whether from the pain of his wound and stitches, or from the story of his helplessness, even he would be hard-pressed to decide.

"And then all I could do was let him go. I couldn't let him shoot her," he finished, rolling the top of his costume back down over his stitched ribs. "But I think I've left her to die anyway. The driver is a very dangerous man."

"Even I could see that," agreed Sgt. Stives. "I hope you're wrong."

Spider-Man left them then, bounding up over a wall and into a narrow alley beyond. A short time later, Peter Parker left the other end of the lane, limping slightly towards the bus-stop. He would miss his class, but he might make his dentist appointment on time.

As the week went on, Peter tried not to dwell on his failure, with very limited success. He spent his nights web-swinging, taking out his frustration on every mugger and car-jacker he could find. He rode around town on the roofs of police cars, listening surreptitiously to their radios for any word about the blue sportscar or its driver. One week passed, and then two with no sign. Peter regretted the incident deeply, but it was not his first failure and it would not be his last. He began to set it behind him.

Another cool, clear morning dawned, catching Peter sleeping in for once. A bus honked outside, waking him up slightly. A look at his clock woke him up more. 8:00. His eyes flew open. Class had started at 7:30! He scrambled into his suit, not wanting to think about how late he was. And for the second time in two weeks. He wouldn't be fired, but Mr. Myers would be less than pleased. He grabbed a nutri-bar for breakfast and took a high-flying shortcut to school.

As he got close to good old P.S. 108, he dropped into his usual alley to change back into his street clothes. "Good thing those brats can't see their teacher now, right, Peter?" he grumbled to himself as he landed behind a dumpster. His spider-sense roused briefly, but there was no danger that he could sense. Nonetheless, something nearby was wrong. He crawled around the alley walls, seeking the source. The alley was cluttered with trash and thrown-out furniture, but he found nothing wrong aside from a rampant disregard for New York's litter laws. At last, he checked the dumpster.

At first, he stared at the pale, slender arm protruding from under a pile of battered cardboard, choosing not to comprehend. Then, moving slowly, reluctantly, he webbed the cardboard out of the way. The pale girl lay there, face down, still in which Peter had last seen her. A browned blood stain decorated the back of her shoulder. Spider-Man looked at her for a moment before he realized that, even though she wasn't moving at all, he could hear her gasping. She was alive. Crouching on the dumpster wall, he carefully rolled her over, supporting her neck and head. She lay completely limp, her eyes fixed on him as she gasped with the same fish-impersonation that he had seen before.

There was more blood here on her front. Long streaks of it had seeped through her odd blue blouse in a strange Y pattern, all dried. He examined her swiftly, but nothing was bleeding that he could see. Her heartbeat was fluttery and strong under his fingertips. He looked her in the face, checking her pupils. Normal. "Can you hear me?"

No response. She just goggled at him. "Not much of a conversationalist, eh?" He joked to push down his anxiety. He felt a strangely paternal concern for the young woman, who looked like she should be taking her driving test, not laying in bloodstained clothes in a dumpster. "Don't run off," he said facetiously and raced from the alley to find a phone and call for an ambulance. He knew better than to move her himself. Aside from the danger of her injuries, having the infamous Spider-Man bring in a seriously wounded kidnapping victim wouldn't do much to dislodge the reputation that J.J. Jameson had worked so hard to create for him. But when Spider-Man reached the street, he found a traffic jam filling it as far as he could see, completely stagnant. Even with the help of sirens and lights, an ambulance would never get anywhere near the girl. There would be no help for it.

He returned to her, looking around for an answer. Finding a couple broken 2x4s in a heap of trash, he webbed them together with the battered cardboard to form a crude combination stretcher and backboard. Working with extreme care, he moved the girl onto the contraption and webbed her securely in place, immobilizing her neck with his wadded suit jacket. Strapping the whole thing to his back, he set off on the ground, sprinting as smoothly as he could down the sidewalk. He knew that the nearest ER was almost three miles away, and he settled into an easy, ground-eating lope. He would be faster in the air, but he couldn't risk the sudden jolts inherent in webswinging. Who knew how long she had lain in that dumpster? A few minutes more spent in travel would make little difference.

A short time later, Spider-Man ran in through the ER doors of Mercy Hospital, shrugging the makeshift backboard off his shoulders. "I need help here," he called out to the surprised staff. An orderly ran up with a gurney and a nurse, who helped him transfer the girl from the cardboard to the bed. "What happened? How is she injured?" the nurse asked, efficiently examining her and pushing her towards a curtained alcove. Spider-Man trailed along, feeling suddenly useless.

"I found her in a dumpster near Midtown High," he said. "She was mostly buried under some cardboard. Face down. I rolled her over, to check her for injuries, but I was very careful with her head and neck. Nothing was actively bleeding, so I immobilized her and brought her here. I would have called an ambulance but traffic was backed up for miles. This was faster." He trailed off as the nurse efficiently sliced the girl's shirt open. The bullet hole high on her right shoulder was a small, clean hole, nearly closed up. Lower, a long, y-shaped incision spanned her flat chest and sunken stomach, stitched neatly but red with infection. The girl still gasped and stared unnervingly.

"What's this?" the nurse wondered aloud, touching a small silver disk embedded in the hollow of the girl's throat. She picked at it slightly, but pulled her hand back when the girl uttered an inarticulate, strangled cry. "Okay, I'll leave that alone." The nurse pulled the curtain belatedly shut around the girl, blocking Spider-Man's view, and called for a doctor.

Shut out, Spider-Man hung out on the ceiling of the waiting room until the woman at the desk, giggling nervously, asked him to please come down, he was upsetting some of the patients. He subsided to a vacant chair and rolled up the lower half of his mask to drink a cup of bitter, tepid coffee. He knew that he shouldn't stick around, but he needed to find out if the girl would be okay. He felt responsible fore her in a way that was unfamiliar to him, and yet completely personal. When a doctor in scrubs came out of the girl's enclosure, he stepped in his path.

"How is she?" he asked. The doctor looked at him judgingly.

"I'm not allowed to give you that information," he said stiffly. "Now, what can you tell me about her? For starters, what's her name?"

"No clue." Spider-Man shrugged. "But two weeks ago, she was a hostage, kidnapped by some men in a blue sportscar. Get in touch with the 12th district PD, ask for Sgt. Stives. He'll come down right away. But please, please just tell me if she's going to be okay." His plea was quiet and urgent, but the doctor didn't relent. Expelled from the ER, Spider-Man hung around outside while waiting for the sergeant to arrive. When he did, Spider-Man followed him unobtrusively into the high-ceilinged ER. Counting on the oft-proven theory that no one ever looks up, he clung to the acoustic-tiled ceiling and eavesdropped.

"What can you tell me about her?" asked Stives, looking at the girl who lay pale behind an oxygen mask. Her eyes were focused on Spider-Man.

"Well, she's in no real danger, first. In the last four to seven days, she's had some pretty major exploratory surgery." He indicated the new gauze covering her torso, and the healed bullet hole in her shoulder. "And this looks like a clean, through GSW, maybe two weeks old. She's also suffering from extreme exhaustion. If I had to guess, I'd say that she hasn't slept in more than two weeks."

"What about that gasping? She was doing that the last time I saw her, too."

"Oh, I thought you knew," said the doctor, slightly taken aback. "She quadriplegic, probably has been her entire life. We did an ultrasound right after I called out, and there is literally a gap in her spinal cord, just two inches below her brain stem. She has no voluntary interaction with anything below her throat."

"Then how is she breathing?" asked Stives. Spider-Man looked at her with a new-found empathy. He had felt helpless at her kidnapping; now he couldn't help imagining how much more helpless she must have felt, unable to move or even call for aid. He'd failed her once. He would not do so again.

"It's called 'forced breathing,'" explained the doctor. "It's a technique commonly taught to people in her situation. But it does take a great deal of practice and conscious effort. If she falls asleep before we can intubate her, she could suffocate."

"Then why haven't you done it yet?" demanded Stives.

"We can," answered the doctor gravely. "She's already been intubated, we think, with a permanent tracheal tube, but it's unlike anything I've ever seen or heard of." He indicated the finger-tip-sized silver disk on her neck. "I think this is the intake. If you look closely, you'll see that it's porous. And the tube inside her trachea is just as odd. We can't interface with it. What I want to do is take it out, replace it with a standard trache, but I'm waiting for her x-rays and lab results. I'd rather not work blind."

"Understandable," agreed Stives. "I'd like to get my hands on the creeps who kidnapped her. They shot two of my men."

"Do you know what they were looking for?" asked Spider-Man, sliding down a web-line upside down and startling the two men. "What are you doing here?!" blustered the doctor.

"Eavesdropping," said Spider-Man frankly. "It's what I do best." He looked at the sergeant. "They, the kidnappers, I mean. They were looking for something. An incision like that, you don't usually see it on a live body. But it is the standard opening cut for an autopsy." He grimaced in revulsion and pity. "To do that to someone who's still alive, it's vivisection. So, Doc, do you know what they were looking for?"

The doctor gaped up at him. "Er, ah, the ultrasounds didn't show anything abnormal, except... I shouldn't be telling you any of this!"

"Ah, come on, Doc," pleaded Spider-Man, flipping right-side up and dropping lightly to the floor. "I'm just worried about her, you know?" He looked at Sergeant Stives and thought he see an approving sort of sympathy there. "I got shot trying to save her. I think that makes her health my business, don't you?"

"Yes," said Stives gravely, looking meaningfully at the obviously reluctant doctor. "It does."

"Fine," sighed the doctor with ill grace. "The x-rays will tell us more, but the ultrasounds showed her to be perfectly normal inside, as far as we can tell. Everything's where it should be, except..."

"Except what?" Spider-Man asked carefully. Stives was watching him obliquely, and the scrutiny made him deepen his voice and check subtly that no skin showed anywhere.

"Except that there's an empty cavity in her chest. It's a small cavity between her left lung and her rib cage, about the size and shape of a match box. The lung's deformed around it, with a thick layer of what seems to be scar tissue, so it has obviously been there for a very long time. Years at least, but probably since birth. I can't imagine why something like that would be done, to a child no less, but if something was there, and I can't be sure there was without an exploratory of my own, which I can't do without consent and not until I've got her properly trached." He ran his hands through his hair, obviously tense. "Oh, god. I have to do a trache on a conscious patient. I'm not..." He shook himself, gathering professionalism to himself like a coat. "Now, do you have any ID for her? Any next of kin we can call in? A name?"

"We've got nothing on her," admitted Stives, reaching abortively for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, pulling out a pen instead to twiddle with his fingers. "We've had broadsheets out since her kidnapping, an artist's work-up on the news every hour, her and the kidnappers both. We got nothing. How about you, Spider-Man?"

Spider-Man shook his head. "They disappeared while I was getting stitched up, and I haven't seen them or their car since."

"Fourth Jane Doe today," signed the doctor. "And I haven't even had breakfast yet." A nurse came in, casting sidelong glances at Spider-Man, and handed the doctor a file folder marked "LAB" in blue letters and a large manila envelope with "X-RAY" printed on it. The doctor put the films from the envelope up on a light-wall, and Spider-Man stepped forward for a better look.

A dark tube ran down the girl's trachea to her lungs, tapering to a rounded, perforated point just above the paler mass that was her breastbone. To the left, Spider-Man could see the faintly rough, rectangular shape that the doctor had described. The doctor whistled through his teeth.

"Now here is something I have never seen before." He traced the dark object's path with his forefinger. "It's metal," he said incredulously. "Who would make a metal trache?"

"I'm sure it's of tremendous scientific interest, Doctor," drawled Stives. "But you can study it when you get it out of her."

Reassured as to the safety of his self-appointed charge, and wary of wearing out his welcome, Spider-Man leapt to the ceiling to leave. A breathy cry came from below.

"Enta! Tol cabr-" It broke off in a long gasp as he spun to look back. The girl was staring at him with a pleading expression on her face.

"You'll be fine," he told her calmingly, dropping on a web-line above her bed. He kissed her forehead gently through his mask, making her smile. "I'll come back. Don't worry." And before the doctor could say anything, he vaulted over the curtain and out of the ER.

Three hours later, Peter Parker was at home, worrying about her. He paced his small apartment, wondering why he had left the hospital. Sure, the doctor's barely concealed suspicion had been wearing on his nerves and Stives' constant, subtle appraisal had kept him on edge, but he shouldn't have let them drive him away.

He jumped when the phone rang. Fumbling for the receiver, he answered absently. "Peter here."

"Parker!" barked Jameson. Peter held the phone away from his ear, wincing. "Parker, what are you doing this afternoon? Don't answer that. You're going down to Mercy Hospital to see this Jane Doe everyone's talking about. The girl was kidnapped in front of a dozen cops two weeks ago. Spiderman was there, probably making a nuisance of himself as always. You didn't bring me pictures of that, either. I'd fire you if you worked for me, instead of freelancing. Just get some pictures of the broad looking pitiful for me, some human interest stuff, got it? Good." He hung up with a bang, and Peter took a deep breath. A phone call from J.J. Jameson was like being run over by a bull. He sat down on his coffee table. He hadn't taken pictures of the first encounter, and he wouldn't have handed them over if he had. Having pictures of himself being shot splashed across the front page of the Daily Bugle, doubtlessly under an accusing headline, was not what he needed right now. Trying to calm the strangely parental anxiety that still affected him, he drank three cups of coffee from his ancient percolator, checked his old camera for film, and headed out.

He took a bus to the hospital, meeting up there with one of the Daily Bugle's reporters, Jessica "Jack" Jordan. They had to flash their press passes to get into the ICU, where the girl was resting after her re-tracheotomy. While Jordan chatted interrogatively with the doctors and nurses, he looked at the sleeping girl. She lay nestled in a tangle of wires and tubes while an oxygen machine pumped rhythmically by her bedside, matching the slight rise and fall of her chest. Her hair was still in its mussed bright braid, and she wore a blue hospital gown that made her pale skin look insubstantial. He took a few pictures, but mostly he just watched. It hurt almost physically to see the dark bruised circles under her eyes.

"What do you think, Pete?" asked Jordan eventually, coming to stand at his shoulder as he watch the girl sleep.

"What? What do I think about what?" he asked, startled.

"About Spider-Man, and about her. The staff says he hung around for more than an hour after he brought he in, asking questions and acting in general like a one-chick hen. We both know that that's not like our Spidey. And I should know. He saved my life once, you know. Knocked out some muggers with a knife. But he didn't stick around. With Spider-Man, it's always the 'swing, fling, you're welcome' thing, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Peter answered softly. "It has to be."

"What's that?" Jordan asked, puzzled.

"Oh, nothing," Peter backpedaled. "I mean, he has to be fast, doesn't he? He couldn't help very many people if he hung around to chat with each of them."

"I suppose not," agreed Jordan. Peter looked at her, startled by the warmth in her voice. She was staring off into space, a fond smile on her face. "But it would be nice if he'd let us get to know him a little." She blushed, and Peter gaped, astounded. This was Jack Jordan, nail-biting tabloid-journalist, world class sarcastic and cynic, stubborn enough to beat Jameson with a headline... and she was blushing over him! Well, over Spider-Man, but it was the same thing.

Peter fought down a blush of his own as a warm glow suffused his chest. Jordan may have been old enough to be his mother and bossy enough to be his aunt, but if he'd been wearing his mask, he'd have hugged her then and there. Someone appreciated him. Someone _loved _him, Spider-Man, for what he did.

A sound from the bed brought him back down from cloud nine. The girl's eyes were open, locked on his. For a moment, his heart stood still. Somehow, impossibly, undeniably, _she recognized him_! Then she smiled. "Enta," she said. "Es micol tors?"

"What language is that?" asked Jordan, before she was interrupted by a business-like nurse at the door.

"Doctor Myers, she's awake." The doctor, the same one from before came in and took Peter's place at the bed-side, checking the girl's pulse and shining a tiny flashlight in her eyes, which were bloodshot around their pale grey irises. As he turned away, Jordan stood in his path, her tape recorder at the ready.

"Has the patient said anything understandable since she arrived here?" she asked quickly. "Has she identified the kidnappers?"

"No," answered Myers shortly, pushing past her and disappearing down the corridor." Jordan looked at Peter. "Helpful much? Do you have all the pics you need?"

Casting a last look at the girl, who's eyes were still on him, Peter nodded. As he followed the reporter, he wondered again; who was she?


	2. Translation

(Disclaimer: I do not own Spiderman. I do own my Spiderman jeans. I do not own Doc Ock, though I'd like to. That doesn't matter because he's probably not going to be in this fic. I just like to mention him. grin

I do not own Stargate SG1, or Daniel Jackson, as much as I'd like to. I do own my SG1 boonie.

Also, thanks to Jewel59 for her point out of a biggish blunder of mine in this chapter. I fixed it!

And Navi-Zero? Who is Cypher?)

****

Spider In The Gate

Chapter 2: **Translation**

9/1/04

This is what he loved. Deciphering words, symbols previously meaningless into valuable connotations and lyrics. The written word was intoxicating to him, the clean shapes, the hidden meaning, that instantaneous, incomparable moment of comprehension when the meaningless shapes became something so, so much more.

Daniel Jackson pushed back his boonie, squinting up at P4X's two pale suns, then back at the stone tablets at his feet. P4X-728 was a desert planet, all white sky and wide, sandy horizons. From where he stood, Daniel could see the long wall stretched in a black line as far as he could see in either direction. Waist high and perfectly straight, the wall was topped with evenly-spaced plaques carved from some onyx stone. Each plaque, about the size of a palm, was pristinely engraved with a short column of arcane figures. The two larger tablets, directly in front of the Stargate, which was imbedded in the low wall, bore more characters in tidy vertical columns. Daniel knelt and ran his fingers over the characters. Sand crunched behind him, and a long shadow fell over his shoulder.

"So," said General Jack O'Neill conversationally, looking out over the sand. "It's a wall."

"Er, no," said Daniel vaguely, standing up and brushing the sand from his hands. "Well, it is, but... These say something about an epidemic that led to a war." He indicated the large plaques, then put his hands in his pockets, looking somberly at the wall, which was starkly dark against the blinding white sand. "I think it's a memorial. Each of the smaller plaques has a name."

Jack stood in silence for a moment, until Sam and Teal'c jogged up. "The UAV's up, sir," she said shielding her eyes with one hand. "I've set it to follow this wall, see how far it does. SG-7 followed it for..."

"A week. I know," Jack answered irritably. "Can we go now? We're due for downtime, and I'd rather not have to set up camp in a giant Zen garden." Daniel nodded, understanding Jack's unease. Now that he knew, or at least suspected, the purpose of the wall, the empty silence of the desert was unsettling. Not even wind relieved the utter silence, nor had it ever done so. The sand stretched out in all directions, as flat as still water. Not even air moved on this dead planet.

"Ops can monitor the UAV from home," Sam said, looking over her shoulder. Teal'c said nothing, but Daniel could tell by the ready way he carried his staff weapon that he too disliked this world.

"Good," said Jack with certainty. "Daniel, dial 'er up! There's a fishing hole and a beer back on Earth with my name on them."

Daniel dialed up the coordinates on the DHD, trying to decide if he had sufficient research to do as an excuse not to go fishing with Jack. Sam must have been thinking the same thing, because over the 'kawoosh' of the opening wormhole, he heard her say "I can't wait to get back to my naqueda generator."

As soon as they stepped through the Stargate, Daniel felt better.

"Sandy," remarked Jack to no one in particular with an expression of distaste. "Have fun watching it on the UAV channel. It's really off the wall." He unslung his P-90 and left the gate-room, whistling. "I'll see you later, kids. If you need me, too bad. There's no phone in my tackle-box!"

"Have a good trip, Jack," said Sam to Jack's fast-retreating back. An officer that Daniel didn't recognize got in Jack's way, and conferred with him for a moment before being waved in Daniel's direction. He came up to him, slightly nervous, and offered him a thin, slightly shaky hand. "I'm Captain-Doctor Reels. I've read all about you, Dr. Jackson, and I have a request for you. It seems that the NID is still active. One of the agents that you described in the affair with Teal'c's friend was also described two weeks ago, in a kidnapping situation in New York City. Sp- Someone found the victim this morning, alive. She speaks a language that nobody's been able to identify."

Curiosity aroused, Daniel followed the captain out of the Gate-room while Sam and Teal'c headed for the showers. "Do you have a recording? A transcript? Maybe I'll recognize it."

"No, I'm afraid not," said Reels, shaking his head. "Apparently, speech is difficult for her. She's said a few words, a dozen, maybe. She's quadriplegic, Dr. Jackson. She's been fitted with a tracheal tube. When they found her, she had some sort of apparatus implanted in her. According to the hospital that removed it, it's made of a metal they've never seen before. I'm asking you to go to New York and see if you recognize her language. If she's a security risk, we need you to bring her back here."

"Do you think she's from off-world?" Daniel asked. Reels shook his head.

"I don't know what to think, sir. Your plane leaves in half an hour, if you want to go."

"Yeah, of course," agreed Daniel instantly.

"You don't have time to stop at your house. Do you have the things you'll need here in the mountain?" Daniel nodded. "Good. Now, here's the number and address of the hospital. She's still in their ICU. but her injuries, while confusing, are mild."

"Wait, I thought she was paralyzed. How, exactly, does that fit in the 'mild' category?"

"That's not a recent injury. But apparently, the people who abducted her performed some sort of surgery. The doctor who's treating her is very interested to know what they found, and so am I. He faxed over her x-rays. Here, you can take them with you." He handed Daniel a yellow envelope. "You can look at them on the plane. There's not much time"

"All right, thank you," said Daniel, nodding. "What's the rush? Anything else?"

"Yes," said the captain-doctor, looking at the pale pink memo in his hand and chewing at his lip absently. "Apparently, the press has already marked her as unusual. A tabloid called the Daily Bugle sent some reporters and a photographer to see her early this afternoon. Her story will run in tomorrow's edition. If she is a security risk, I need you to find that out as quickly as possible."

Daniel sighed. "Well, that complicates things a little. Is it just me?"

"You were our first choice. We need someone who can talk his way out of anything, and who understands subtlety. That means you."

"Ah. I'll be going then, I guess." Casting a last, habitual look at the closed Stargate, Daniel strode out of the room. He jogged up three levels to his office, grabbing the duffle bag full of clothes that he kept stashed there for emergencies. He hesitated a moment, then packed a stack of reading material, his tape recorder, and a few select sources for any of a dozen languages before running out the door.

The plane was waiting for him when he reached the air-field, a comfortable, fast little plane with a crew of three and no passengers save him. Take-off was uneventful, and after double-checking to see that the steward wasn't in his part of the small cabin, he pulled out his 'reading material.' Comic books were Daniel's guilty pleasure. If Jack ever found out, he knew, he'd rib him mercilessly. Jack had never thought of Daniel as an adult to begin with. But Daniel had never been convinced that comic books should be reserved for children. He saw comics, when he really thought about them, as an older, purer form of story-telling, closer to culture's verbal roots. Pictures and words, enough details to evoke images of intense, _important _action and emotion, but sparse enough to allow the imagination to evoke its own responses: heroism, nobility, awe. Too well did Daniel know that there were real heroes in this world, but they were infrequent and all but invisible. Comic books, and the mythic truths that lay behind them, were important.

And then there were the rumours that belonged in comic books, but weren't. Daniel, scholar (_geek_) that he was, knew the rumours. He knew that at least some of them were true. A man did fly around New York City on webs. A school north of Albany did train an army of children. A man in his first psychology class had been able to 'see,' even with blind eyes, _and he could..._ Well, Daniel was no hero. He was just... a good man. Good at what he did, good at what he had to do. Good with languages. There was nothing special about that. And in outer space, Daniel knew that an entire race of creatures knew only hate, and greed, and revenge. What were heroes to that? A few special men and women with unusual (freakish) abilities here on this small planet. Abilities to heal oneself, to breath underwater, _to understand any language_, what good were these against an entire race of super-villains? Was it even right for these heroes (freaks!) to save (serve) mankind? Daniel was flying to a state where only a year ago, a dozen children (mutants!) were crucified by the race they didn't even know they had to save. _What if they knew everything? _No, there is nothing to find out. Not about Daniel. Nothing at all that the important people don't already know. He can't turn invisible or shoot laser beams out of his eyes. He's not bright red with a stone hand or blue with a prehensile tail.

__

Yet, whispered a younger part of Daniel's mind as he tried to pretend that comics were only stories. _Yet you hide. You hid in school behind big glasses and books that you'd already read and teachers whose subjects you'd already learned. You never took an IQ test, never took your SATs. You hide in a mountain with an alien and all the books you've ever read and a man who doesn't believe in mutants._

You hide from already knowing what they're trying to teach you. From already knowing what's written on the next, unturned page. And now you hide from two cancelled death certificates, a wake, and no grave. When the public hunted mutants in the cities, you convinced Jack to let you off-world and you convinced yourself that it was for the rocks. He set down the comic book and buried his head in his hands. The voice did not relent. _You haven't been back to New York since you found out._ There was nothing to find out. _Of course not._

Daniel drifted off to sleep somewhere over the Midwest, dozing restlessly from dream to dream. When turbulence woke him up over New Jersey, all he could remember was a vague sense of words and letters with no meaning. He was clammy with chill sweat and a headache pounded behind his brows. He forced himself to look at General Hammond's file on the girl, but most of the medical details meant nothing to him. _They would if you'd let them_.

By the time the plane landed, Daniel had stuffed his irrational fears back into their rational boxes. The comic books were just stories once again, and New York's biggest problem with a gap in its skyline and a girl in one of its hospitals. As he disembarked, a black car was waiting for him. The driver was a silent, black-suited type and he took him straight to his hotel without a single word exchanged. Daniel checked in at the front desk, but did not go up to his room. Instead, he shouldered his bag and headed out into the city, choosing to reach the hospital on foot.

His hotel was in a good part of town, but as he headed east, the buildings got shabbier, the alleys darker. Daniel almost laughed when three young men came out of a stoop and started to tail him, not even trying to be subtle about it. Seven years ago, before Jack and the Stargate and Abydos, Daniel would have been ideal prey for these hoods; absent-minded and physically inept. But this Daniel had been through Unas, Goa'uld, and Jack's courses in unarmed combat. Pausing to look at an unappetizing display in a deli window, he covertly examined his would-be muggers.

He didn't like what he saw. Of the three kids, two of them were bigger than he was and all three were built like Jaffa. The smallest one, who trailed a little behind his cohorts, was smiling predatorily and playing with a butterfly knife, flipping it open and shut. Daniel knew he couldn't take all three of them with that knife in the nix. He walked faster. Ahead of him he could see the bustle of a main street. Too well did he know that the best way to win was to deny the battle. The muggers probably wouldn't attack him in front of a hotdog vender and a crowd of tourists.

Behind him, the boys began to hoot and threaten even as their footsteps broke into a run. He ran too, hoping to outrun them, but then another pair of thugs stepped out of an alley ahead of him. He ran straight into them and strong arms grabbed his, spinning him around to face the followers. "Where you goin' so fast?" growled the knife-wielder. "Eh, army man?"

Daniel cursed himself for not changing after the mission to P4X-728, then brought his heel down viciously on the instep of the nearest goon. One arm thus freed, he slammed an elbow into his other captor's solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him and doubling him over.

He was off to a good start, but five against one were impossible odds. The biggest of the gang threw a punch that glanced off his temple, leaving ringing lights in its wake. He stumbled back, pushing the bag at them. "Take it, it's nothing. I don't have a wallet."

"Yeah, sure ya don't, soldier," jeered a thug. Another punch flew, and another, driving Daniel against a wall. His head bounced off the bricks, and the knife man grabbed his throat, forcing his head up while the thugs pinned his arms. He struggled futilely, but then cold steel pricked his throat and he stilled. One of them fumbled through his pockets, but he'd been half-honest. He never took a wallet off-world. It was in his bag, in the pocket of his spare jeans.

Before he could do anything more in his own defense, the knife man disappeared in a streak of blue and red. Before the other four registered this, they were gone too, yanked upwards by a fine grey net. So freed, Daniel looked up and caught a glimpse of his rescuer, a slim, costumed form on the wall, with opaque silver eyes and a quizzical tilt to his head. The hero waved jauntily down at him, tossing him his duffle bag and securing the thugs to the underside of the fire escape with some sort of webbing. "It looked like you had everything under control, buddy," he quipped, dropping to perch on a trashcan, all knees and elbows and angles. "But everyone can use a helping hand, right?"

Daniel picked up his bag and re-shouldered it, brushing a drop of blood from the underside of his jaw. "Thanks," he said stiffly. "But I was all right."

"Hey, hey," said the vigilante, raising his hands. "No need to be a martyr. I'm a good guy. Just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man." With a leap and an out-flung arm, the hero ran up the nearest wall and disappeared onto the building's roof, leaving behind a conflicted Daniel Jackson and five trussed street kids.

Rubbing at his nicked jaw, Daniel reached the main street and found a police man. Once told the story, the cop laughed easily.

"About ten minutes, you say? Well then, we'll come along and pick them up in about half an hour." When Daniel looked puzzled about the delay, he laughed again and explained. "When Spidey webs a guy up, he ain't going nowhere. And I mean nowhere. That goop of his is damn hard to get through. Worse'n super glue. But it'll dissolve eventually, and that's when we'll pick those thugs up and run 'em in."

Daniel declined to come down to the station, deciding instead to continue towards his original destination. He walked with a native's familiarity now, on streets that he knew, avoiding the dark by-ways and alleys. He kept his eyes on his feet to avoid seeing the sights of this city, the architecture that had so delighted his mother and the press of humanity that had engaged his father, only glancing up to avoid being trampled into that architecture by that press. Eventually, a vague awareness of a red light and a roar of traffic stopped him at a street corner. Resolutely abandoning his melancholy thoughts, he looked around and jumped in surprise.

Standing next to him and looking very much as though he wished that his suit had pockets stood Spider-Man. Not looking left or right, just gazing at the cross-walk light with a forced air of nonchalance, tapping a toe lightly in impatience. He turned to Daniel, raising a hand in recognition. "I hate these wide streets. I can't just jump over." He held out his hands, palm up, and shrugged self-consciously. "Ran out of web after tying your friends up." He flexed his wrists. "Did you tell the boys in blue where I left them?"

"Yes," said Daniel. "Are you, are you following me?"

"Me?" said Spider-Man, his hand to his chest in mock indignation. "Not at all, pal. I'm just on my way to visit a friend." Then the light changed and he was away, sprinting across the street and scaling a supermarket. At a more pedestrian pace, Daniel followed. He bought a pomegranate at the market and ate it as he walked, licking the thin juice off his fingers, wrapping the seeds in a handkerchief and pocketing them. Twenty minutes later, he arrived at Mercy Hospital and checked in at the front desk. A shallow-looking young woman sat there, smiling vapidly up at him.

"Dr. Jackson?" she said redundantly when he told her his name and why he was there. "And you're here to visit one of our Jane Does? Do you know which one?" She blew a pink bubble, her fingers poised above her keyboard. Daniel checked the folder from his bag.

"Er, she was admitted to the ER about eight this morning, the quadriplegic kidnapping victim?"

"Oh, you mean April!" exclaimed the girl, popping her bubble neatly.

"She's been identified?" Daniel asked, surprised.

"No, sorry. We just call her April 'cause she was our fourth Jane Doe today. January, February, March, April, get it?" She pulled up a file on her screen, still popping her gum and talking. "Now she's a weird one, you know. Most of our Does are drunk or dead, not paralyzed. Okay, here she is. And you're expected, so I can let you up even though visiting hours are over. She's in room L19, up in the new Osborn Wing." She gave him directions and he took the elevator up twelve floors to the private room where "April" had been moved only an hour ago.

An airman at her door stopped him and asked for an ID. As Daniel fished it out of his bag, he glanced down the hall, where a middle-aged woman sat in a small waiting area, watching him avidly and talking very fast into a small recorder. "Who's she?" he asked, indicating the woman with a jerk of his head. The airman rolled his eyes expressionlessly and handed back his military ID.

"That's Jessica Jordan, sir. A reporter for the Daily Bugle. She's been here all day, hoping for a glimpse of something _unusual_. The doctor should be back any minute, sir."

"Ah, thank you, but I'm not a 'sir.' Don't let the uniform fool you. I'm just a civilian consultant." Nodding, the airman stepped aside and Daniel entered the girl's room. It was a nice room, brightly lit by large windows with a panoramic view of the city, but the girl in the bed didn't seem to be able to appreciate it. She was laying back, staring at the ceiling. Her face looked pale and bruised above the tangle of tubes and wires that covered her chest. His movement must have caught her eye, for suddenly her gaze shifted to meet his. Her eyes were an indeterminate shade of grey, made even more colorless by the amber length of her hair.

"Er, hello," he said, stepping to the other side of the hospital bed. "My name is Daniel Jackson. Do you understand me?"

No response. She just kept looking at him, then her eyes shifted to a point behind him, out the window. Her face broke into a huge, shining grin. Perforce, Daniel turned around to look and found himself, for the third time in an hour, face to face with blank white eyes set into a red mask. "Now who's following who?" quipped Spider-Man as he jumped from the windowsill onto the room's ceiling. He held up a finger to his mask when Daniel opened his mouth to call for the guard. "Ah, ah, ah," he admonished quietly. "Four's a crowd. I'm just here to visit my friend." He perched in an upside down crouch above the bed and waved to its occupant. "How're you doing, girl? They changed your room. I would have been back sooner, but it took me a minute to find you all the way up here."

Daniel scowled faintly at the masked man, still undecided about whether to call the guard. But the girl was beaming, obviously delighted to see the bug. Then she opened her mouth and let loose a halting string of syllables. Daniel froze with recognition even as Spider-Man cocked his head uncomprehendingly. The girl was speaking Asgard. It was a language that Daniel had rarely heard; only in the history tapes that Thor had given him. His species must speak it among themselves, but Thor, Loki and the other little grey men that Daniel had met only spoke English to their visitors. But he had heard it, he knew it, and now he was hearing it from the lips of an adolescent, quadriplegic human girl, being spoken to a humanoid with the abilities, tendencies, and for all Daniel knew, proclivities of a spider. Just when he thought his job couldn't get any weirder. Tentatively, he spoke up in kind, fumbling in his bag for his notes recorder. Hello.

The girl's eyes snapped back to him, widening in shock. Hello, Daniel repeated, drawing closer. My name is Daniel Jackson. What's yours?

Asa, she said simply, watching him with curiosity. You understand me?

A little, Daniel demurred, smiling with the satisfaction of translation. Can you tell me where you learned this language?

Her brow furrowed. From Father. Where else does a child learn to speak?

Where else indeed? Who is 'Father'?

Father is Father. My Father.

Patiently, Daniel tried to persist, but he was interrupted by the doctor's arrival. When he saw Spider-Man, still on the ceiling, the man yelled for the guard and the hero flipped out the open window, clinging to the glass by his gloved fingertips. "I was leaving anyway. These two conversationalists were making me feel left out." Tossing off an irreverent salute, he scuttled away, scrambling down the sheer glass wall and out of sight. The guard muttered into the radio on his collar and the doctor came over to stand at Daniel's side, checking the readings on the bank of monitors above Asa's bed.

"He was just talking to her," Daniel said, staying out of the way. "She seemed really happy to see him."

"He's been hanging around, if you'll forgive the pun, ever since he brought her in this morning. This is at least the third time he's been to see her. We keep moving her room, but all our rooms have windows, and she gets pretty upset if we close them. I've told the guy he's not welcome here, but he pays no attention. I don't know why the city allows freaks like him such free reign." The doctor looked at Daniel for the first time. "Or the military, for that matter. You must be Dr. Jackson." He offered a dry, papery hand. "I'm Dr. Mitler. I take it you've seen April's file?"

"Asa," Daniel interrupted. "Her name is Asa. She told me."

"Oh good. You understand her. We've gone through all of our interpreters and none of them even recognized the language. It's really a first, for the military to get involved in a Doe case like this. So, what _is _the language?"

"It's an, um, obscure European sub-dialect," said Daniel. It wasn't exactly a lie. The Asgard language was at the root of a great many European languages, including English. Probably. "Can I have a few more minutes to talk to her?"

"Take all the time you want. I'll be doing my rounds on this floor if you need me. I would be grateful if you could get some contact info out of her. You know, anyone we can call to come pick her up." He jotted a few notes on a page by the door and left, closing the door behind him. Daniel turned back to Asa.

Did you understand any of what I said to that man? he asked, gesturing past the door. Or is this your only language?

My sister speaks your language, she said brightly, if unhelpfully. But I don't. Not yet. I will learn, Father says, but I haven't. She made the facial equivalent of a shrug. My sister's good at languages, not me.

Who is your sister? Daniel asked. We could find her, and then you wouldn't be alone here.

Asa is my sister, she said matter-of-factly. I would like her to come back.

She has the same name as you?

Sometimes, she said with another facial shrug. But sometimes she says her name is My-ya. She stumbled over the awkward, un-Asgardian pronunciation. My-ya Tom-pson. She said that when she was mad at Father.

"Mia Thompson," Daniel repeated, writing it down on a slip of paper from his pocket. Is she your older sister, or your younger sister?

She is my sister sister. We are the same. But I am . . . newer.

Daniel puzzled over her word choice. Newer? You mean, you are younger than Asa? Mia?

Asa bit her lip with small, white teeth. Daniel noticed peripherally that they were baby teeth, even though she looked like a young woman in her mid-teens. Father found her first, and then made me to match. But I don't match very well. Asa is not _still _like I am. She can walk and breath and function the way she should. She is not broken. She frowned thoughtfully. That's why Father sent us away. Because I am broken.

Daniel thought he knew what the situation was. Asa, did your father look like you? Like the other people you've seen around here?

No, she said, as if it were an obvious fact. He isn't like anyone else. He's small, and his eyes are like Enta's, but black, not white. Bigger than yours.

So he's an Asgard! Daniel exclaimed triumphantly. He was startled when she paled and bit her lip again.

I'm not supposed to say that word. That's Father's secret. I couldn't even tell Asa.

Daniel hastened to reassure her. No, don't worry about it. I won't tell anyone. His thoughts were racing. If Asa's Father was an Asgard, and he made her to 'match' this Mia Thompson, than she was a clone. A badly botched clone, and not the first botched clone that Daniel had met. There was Jonathon, Jack's teenaged clone, made by the renegade Asgard Loki. But Loki had been arrested by the other Asgard years ago. How long ago did Father send you and Mia away?

Asa rolled her eyes up and ran her tongue around the inside of her teeth, obviously counting. Five, I think. Five years. He left us in a field in Min-ne-sotah. Asa brought me here on the way to Ex-a-Vee-yair's school, but then she left me and Enta found me.

Enta? The Asgard word was unfamiliar to Daniel. _It doesn't have to be_.

That's what I call him. He crawls and makes webs like the entas on Father's ship. Asa called them Spye-ters.

"Spiders," said Daniel, cooling. Right. His name is Spider-Man. But where did Mia go?

I don't know, she whispered, her eyelids drooping. She took me away from the Ehn-Eye-Dee and then she put me somewhere where she said I'd be safe, and she said she was going to find someone to help her, but she never came back, and then Enta came and brought me here.

"Hey, Dr. Jackson?" Daniel jumped at the doctor's voice from the door, which he hadn't heard open. "Did you find out anything?"

"Just a second, please." Daniel turned back to Asa. I'm going to leave now, and let you get some sleep, but I promise I'll be back, and I'm going to take you somewhere safe.

Will you find Asa? Asa asked, her eyelids losing the battle with gravity.

I'll try, Daniel promised. He stepped around the bed and followed Dr. Mitler out into the hall, shutting the door quietly behind him. I'll need... He paused, closed his eyes, and shook English back onto his tongue like a coat. "I'll need to take her with me back to my base hospital. When can she be moved?"

"Tomorrow at the earliest," said the doctor confidently. "She's been through a lot."

"That's an understatement," agreed Daniel. "Alright. I'll make arrangements, tell the police what I've found out, and I'll be back around two tomorrow afternoon."

(In case this was confusing, inside the brackets is when Daniel and Asa are speaking Asgard to one another. My overall knowledge of the latest 2 seasons of SG1 is very imperfect, so please don't try to poke too many holes in it. That said, constructive reviews are always appreciated. After this, I don't think that the chapters will be so rigidly separated between Peter and Daniel.)


	3. Mutation

(Disclaimer: I do not own Spiderman. I do own my very awesome home-made Spiderman jeans. I do not own Doc Ock, though I'd like to. That doesn't matter because he's probably not going to be in this fic. I just like to mention him.

I do not own Stargate SG1, or Daniel Jackson, as much as I'd like to. I do own my SG1 boonie.

I do not own X-Men, either, though I would like to meet them. I do own my Kurt action figure. Well, actually, I don't. My sister does. Oh well.)

****

Spider In The Gate

Chapter 3: **Mutation**

9/11/04

Peter flashed his press pass at the gun-chewing receptionist at the front desk and ran up the short flight of steps to the elevator. He'd been checking on the girl again when his pager had gone off, buzzing silently against his hip and calling him away. But he'd seen that man in green fatigues talking to her kindly, and he was beginning to feel that she would be okay. There was something about him that seemed odd, off somehow, but not wrong. This Daniel Jackson was no danger, and he could help.

The page had been Jordan, urgently wondering where he was. And when Jordan barked, you jumped. Peter was impatiently pushing the elevator button when it opened, and there was Daniel Jackson, stepping off, totally absorbed in the notes he was taking on a small recorder. "... is confident in her language, indicating exposure since birth, yet her accent is subtly different than samples I have heard previously. Possible theories include human vocal production and linguistic contamination." The doors shut and Peter pressed the button for the twelfth floor. Jordan was waiting for him, pacing the waiting area at the end of the hall.

"Where were you?" she hissed, eying the guard. "I wanted a picture of this army guy who was here to go with my story. How's 'G.I. Jane Doe' for a headline, eh? They had a man up here from the Air Force or something, and he was talking to that girl in some language no one's ever heard of."

"I'm sorry, Jack," Peter said contritely. "I had to meet with the parents of one of my students."

Jordan snorted. "One of these days, Parker, you're going to have to choose which job comes first." She smiled, tousling his hair. "Have I ever told you how much you remind me of my son?"

"Only twice this week," he answered, trying to smooth down his hair again. Good thing none of his students could see him now. "You've been slacking off."

"Don't tell anyone," she laughed. It was well-ingrained, this pattern of ribbing and affection.

"No worries. I've got papers to grade tonight, Jack," he said. "So, can we call it quits for the day?"

"Yeah," said Jordan reluctantly, capping her pen and tucking it into the brim of her hat. "I heard this Dr. Jackson say that he would be back tomorrow. You don't teach on Wednesdays, right?"

"Right, but I have a field trip in the morning."

"Great. Meet me here around two in the afternoon. I know there's a story here, Parker. I just know it."

"Right. I'll see you then, Jack." He took the stairs down, two at a time to the lobby, and within five minutes, Spider-Man was swinging rapidly downtown, reveling in a mood better than he had known in weeks. He headed back for his Manhattan apartment, entering through the window. Pulling of his mask, he kissed M.J. on the cheek, and offered to make dinner.

"Mm, what's the occasion, Tiger?" she asked, kissing him back. He spun her around and slid into the kitchen, delving into the cupboard for pasta and bullion.

"My girl's going to be all right," he called back to her triumphantly, fishing a clove of fresh garlic out of the cupboard and grating it into a skillet, putting it with oil on the stove to heat.

"The girl from the kidnapping?" she asked, coming to lean on the doorframe and watch him.

"Yeah." He put the angel-hair pasta into a big pot of water on a back-burner and sliced up a chicken breast into fine strips. "The hospital found someone who can speak her language. Some guy from the Air Force named Jackson. Dr. Jackson. He met Spider-Man a couple of times today: Nice guy. A little twitchy, but nice." He put the chicken in the skillet, stirring it into the sizzling garlic oil.

"The Air Force?" M.J. asked. "What does the Air Force have to do with any of this?"

Peter shrugged and shot out a web-line to grab a bottle of rosemary from the other side of the kitchen. "That's what Jack wants to know. She overheard them talking, Jackson and the doctor. He's coming back tomorrow afternoon to take her to his base hospital, wherever that is."

"Are you going to be there when they discharge her?" she asked, pulling up a stool to the counter and perching on it.

"Jack wants me too," he conceded, stirring the browning meat. "She wants some pictures to go with her article. I just don't think that there's really much news here. Not unless the girl's a misplaced spy or some sort of secret weapon, which I really doubt. At most, I think she's maybe a mutant of some sort." The pasta boiled over and he jumped to turn down the heat. "I would at least like to find out her name, though."

"So go," chided Mary Jane. "But remember, you're taking your students to the museum tomorrow morning. Myers called today..."

"Argh!" Peter winced as if struck, grimacing. "That man exists solely to be a fly in my ointment. Did you have to mention him while I was in a good mood?"

"I'm sorry, Tiger, but you're really on his black list. Today was the third time this semester that you've missed your classes."

"It's not like there's anything I could do about it," he said, shrugging. "I'm not going to miss tomorrow, not even if Doc Ock and Gobby both show up doing ballet on Ground Zero." He pulled the chicken off the burner and added the crushed rosemary. "My historical science class has been building up to this trip for a month."

"Don't jinx it," M.J. warned, stealing a noodle while Peter drained the pasta through a web sieve over the sink. "Mm, this is good. You should cook more often, Pete."

* * *

This is what he hated. Daniel stared at the ceiling for a long time, trying to decide whether to remember or forget the dream that had woken him. Then reality came in, like the early morning sunlight through the curtains: he couldn't forget. He never forgot anything, unless he was under outside influence. Disentangling his fists from the hotel sheets, he ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. A head-ache was throbbing dully above his eyes and his mouth tasted like yesterday's rice pilaf gone horribly wrong.

He lingered in bed as long as he could stand, then got up, got dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, and wandered into the bathroom to brush listlessly at his teeth. The light was too bright in the room, aggravating his head-ache, so he dug the most improbable comic book that he had out of his duffle bag and brought it down to the main lobby. Within ten minutes, he had set the comic aside and sat, watching the light increase in the city outside.

Coming back to New York was a mistake. This was the city where everything happened. Seventy percent of all mutations in this country happened in this one state. People who had never shown any sign of abnormality came here and grew wings or scales. Mutants in the same situation experienced secondary or even tertiary mutations. There was something about New York, and he shouldn't have come. Bad things, strange things happened here.

When morning travelers began to crowd the lobby, Daniel rolled up his comic book carefully, stuffed it into his back pocket and headed out. Almost unthinkingly, he hailed a taxi. "The New York Museum of Art," he directed the driver absently. He couldn't come here and not visit the museum, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. Sitting back, he leaned his head back and shut his eyes, trying to ignore the incipient migraine. Bracing himself against the erratic driving of the cab, he tried to decipher the presence of Asa here in New York. Starting with the assumption that she was one of Loki's clones, he still had a host of questions. Why was she in New York? Why did she still _exist_? What went wrong with her 'construction'? Why did Loki have sustained contact with her and Mia Thompson? Where had Mia gone? And who had kidnapped her, and why? This last might be the easiest to answer. Asa herself had identified them, as had a witness at the kidnapping. The NID. Daniel knew that sects of the rogue operation were still at large, still dedicated to their unethical cause. They would certainly have been interested in her, but her kidnapping had been so public. Not exactly typical NID mission operation.

"Oy, we're 'ere," grunted the cab driver. Daniel jerked, startled. "Eight-fi'ty," he elaborated, looking at Daniel through the rear-view mirror. Daniel got out and handed him his cash, then looked up. The museum stood tall and imposing against the graying sky. Long posters hung to either side of the entrance, each displaying a cartouche in poorly translated Egyptian. Stuffing his hands deep in his pockets, Daniel got in line behind a class of high school kids waiting for entrance. Their teacher, a harried-looking young man in a cheap suit, was trying to do a head count, but the students were milling around excitedly in pairs and cliques, making accuracy difficult. Daniel watched with mild interest as the teacher shut his eyes, counted silently, then opened them and shouted, in a humorous voice, "All right, everyone. Anyone who's not here, raise your hand!" The class laughed, but they stayed still long enough for a count. With that, the class filed into the museum. Slowly, Daniel followed.

Inside, Daniel had only time to pay his admission before a familiar face accosted him.

"Danny!" said Professor Camen, one of the museum's oldest curators. "It is you, Danny?"

Daniel groaned inwardly. He hadn't thought that the old man would still be here, let alone recognize and remember a boy he hadn't seen for almost two decades. "Hello, Professor Camen. It's been a long time. I go by Daniel now." He turned a weary smile to the old man.

"Nonsense, nonsense. You'll always be little Danny Jackson to me," assured the white-haired man bluffly. "Why, I remember when you were smaller than a canopic jar. Always covered in dust, rooting through the storage rooms looking for anything Egyptian. You were born there, weren't you?" He smiled, patting Daniel's shoulder avuncularly. "Only child I've ever met who's first languages were Egyptian and archeaologian."

"That was a long time ago, Professor Camen," demurred Daniel, embarrassed.

"Too long," agreed the curator. "I haven't seen you since the, since the accident. Oh, I am sorry, Danny. I didn't mean to bring up unfortunate memories."

"No, it's all right, Professor." Daniel smiled lopsidedly. "I've been busy, or I probably would have come back sooner."

"Ah. Busy," said the old man, his eyebrows climbing. "Yes, the mysterious career of Dr. Daniel Jackson. What is it you are doing with yourself these days? You haven't published in years, and no one's seen you since your lecture in San Francisco on the origins of the pyramids. Rumours are, you were working for the military, or possibly dead." The statement wasn't a question, but Camen was clearly waiting for an answer. Daniel stuck his hands in his pockets again and scuffed his foot.

"I can't talk about what I do now."

"Ah," said Camen opaquely. After an uncomfortable silence and some even less comfortable small talk, Daniel won his way free of the old acquaintance and began to wander aimlessly around the museum. This had been his second home for years, from the time he was six, when his parents decided that a home school in a dusty dig in Giza wasn't the best environment for an obviously gifted child and took positions here and at the nearby university, right up until the accident. This was his first visit back since that day.

He meandered through the exhibits, noting what had changed and what had not in the intervening nineteen years. Eventually, he fell in behind the class he'd seen earlier while their teacher explained ancient Babylon's understanding of physics and human physiognomy. The teacher was progressive and well-spoken, as well as obviously intrigued by his subject matter, and Daniel found himself listening as he followed them from one exhibit to another. It even distracted him from his head-ache, which had evolved over the morning from irritating to nearly unbearable.

He got so involved in the man's lecture that he didn't even notice as he followed the class into the Egyptology room.

"In Egypt," the teacher was saying, "by the time of the pyramid builders, mathematicians had refined the concept of pi to three and one eighth, which is amazingly close considering the tools of the day. No more-accurate estimates would be made until the Renaissance, which I'll get to later.

"In biology, the Egyptians were also relatively advanced. Who can tell me why? Melissa?"

A young black girl near the front of the group put her hand down. 'Mummification, Mr. Parker?"

"Exactly. They dissected dead human bodies, with a great deal of surgical precision. There is also evidence from the era that they knew about issues like infection and sterility, all the things that are at the roots of modern medicine.

"Now, as for astronomy." The teacher turned and indicated a large exhibit behind him. Daniel stopped hearing him, hearing anything. How dare they keep that? Three standing slabs of yellow sandstone supported a fourth, heavier slab, all thickly decorated with inscribed hieroglyphs. The top slab was cracked through, held together by a framework of metal bars bolted to the top. The last time Daniel had seen this exhibit, aside from the Gamekeeper's twisted revision, was the morning his parents died. His head-ache pulsed fiercely, driving him to his knees. Around him, the world dissolved into a cacophony of voices and a rumble of ancient stone.

"What's wrong, man?"

_"Lower it just a little more on this side."_

"He's freaking!"

_"Just a little more this way."_

"Hey, where'd they come from?"

_"Careful!"_

"It's falling!"

_"It's falling!"_

"Where'd Mr. Parker go? He was just here!"

* * *

20 Minutes Earlier...

With relief, Peter ushered his second period class into the museum. They were an unruly lot on the best of days, all bright kids, but heady with it and more than willing to test the limits of the new teacher. Field trips were an opportunity that no one would pass up.

Distracted as he was, he hadn't missed the familiar face on the front steps. He had been able to stifle any hint of recognition at Daniel Jackson's appearance, but only barely. He knew that Jackson hasn't seen him yesterday at the hospital, though Jordan had filled him in on the man over the phone that night, after she'd done some research. Apparently, this Jackson guy was a _name_ among language circles. Young, gifted, speaks at least thirty-seen languages. And his name had shown up in the Bugle before as well. Seven years ago, he had disappeared after a conference in San Francisco after being approached by a known affiliate of the Air Force. One year later, he's back. No explanation. Another year passes and he's reported dead, for a single week. Then he's back, again with no exclamation. The pattern had continued like that ever since, but very few details were available, which made Peter slightly anxious. This mystery man would be taking his girl away to who knows where.

He caught himself staring at the linguist as he was approached by a genial old curator. Shaking his head, Peter recalled his scattering class and began his itinerary, leading them from one exhibit to another, expostulating on the scientific sophistication of various ancient peoples. When he was up to early Babylon, he noticed Jackson again, wandering casually around the exhibits and apparently listening intently to his lecture. He trailed behind the class as Peter led them from room to room, paying as close attention as the best of Peter's students. Occasionally, an absent sort of amusement crossed his face, as if at some private joke.

When Peter reached the Egyptology room, his spider-sense tingled, but once again, there was nothing there. Staying alert, he launched into the next part of his tour. At the edge of his vision, Jackson watched him patiently. But when he reached the topic of astrology, his spider-sense screamed just as Jackson froze, his face paling instantly to dead-white. He fell to his knees, his face contorted in anguish and then the students noticed him.

"What's wrong, man?" asked Jacob, a sophomore, kneeling to check on the prostrate man. He jumped back when Daniel went into a spasm, falling onto his side and convulsing. "He's freaking!"

He spun around then when Melissa, his honors bio project, pointed behind him. "Hey, where'd they come from? They just appeared, Mr. Parker!"

Up on the dais of the exhibit behind him, a man and a woman had appeared, apparently directing the assembly of the exhibit. He could hardly hear them over his spider-sense, but it looked like they were directing the placement of the large cover-stone. Sensing impending disaster, Peter ducked behind a large menhir and shucked his street clothes, changing into Spider-Man with lightning speed. He traded floor for ceiling just as the students began to scream.

"It's falling!" one kid shouted as the giant stone teetered above the man and woman. Spider-Man tried to web them out of the way, but he was too late. The slab crashed down, sending a cloud of dust and chips in all directions. Still on the floor, Jackson screamed hopelessly and stared disbelievingly at the wreckage.

Hoping against hope, Spider-Man leapt down to pull the rubble off of the hapless couple, but his hands went right through the broken stone, encountering invisibly intact walls instead. Behind him, Jackson groaned faintly, and the rubble and the corpses under it faded away, leaving the exhibit exactly as it had been when they arrived, standing solid and venerable under its soft spot-light.

"What... what happened?" Spider-Man asked, echoing the sentiments of everyone else in the room. "It wasn't... real?" He jumped off the dais and knelt next to Jackson, who was staring at the stone slabs with a lost anguish. "Are you okay? What was that?"

Jackson twitched all over, once, and shook his head as if to clear it. He looked up at Spider-Man with blue, watering eyes. "I think that was me," he said tensely, sitting up and touching his temple gingerly. He looked around at the crowding students. "Was anyone hurt?"

"No," Spider-Man assured him, helping him to his feet. "It was just an illusion, I think. Are you okay?"

"I'm, yes, I think I am. Did... did everyone see that?"

"Yeah!" volunteered Jacob enthusiastically. "You a mutie, man? Who were those two people?"

Blatantly ignoring the first question, Jackson blinked and answered the second in a hollow voice. "My parents. They were my parents. I've got to go." Pushing his way through the class, Jackson stumbled away through the labyrinthine exhibits. Spider-Man watched him go before disappearing into the shadows.

* * *

Daniel stumbled blindly away from the Egyptology room, his head oddly light and heavy all at once. _Your parents_, said the young voice in the back of his mind, appalled. Daniel missed a step and grabbed a wall for support, sliding down to rest his forehead against the cool marble. What was happening to him? His mind threw out incoherent theories and denials. He was a mutant. Impossible. Someone else nearby was a mutant, a mind reader. _Why would anyone else do this to you? _He was going mad. _It wouldn't be the first time._ Another of Machello's devices? A dream? Was he a mutant? The younger voice offered a sympathetic silence and for the first time, Daniel became _aware _of the other presence in his mind, a cool, quiet consciousness. "Who are you?" he asked aloud, trying not to panic. What if it was a Goa'uld? How long had it been in his head? What if- _I am not a threat. You have known me for a very long time_.

"I, what?" Daniel stopped, suffering a flash of insight. It took his breath away to remember all the arguments that he had had with _himself _in his life, that other cool, logical voice that had always been his inner skeptic. "You?" _Yes_. "Why?"

"Hey!" intruded an outside voice, loud and belligerent. "Hey, mutie! What are you doing here!"

Daniel looked up to see a security guard with a crew-cut and a gun looming over him, scowling hatefully. "Me?" _Apparently._

"Yeah, you, ya freak. What was all that about? You getchyer kicks off seeing people snuff it?"

"What?" Daniel gaped incredulously. "No! Those people were my parents!"

"Whatever. Who are you?" demanded the guard. "You one of those X-creeps?"

'What? No!" Daniel said again. "I'm not anybody. Look, no one got hurt, why won't you just leave me alone?"

The guard smiled nastily, clearly possessed of delusions of righteousness. "'Cause you're a mutant, moron. And I'm your worst nightmare."

The younger voice burst out laughing, so forcefully that Daniel couldn't resist chuckling himself. _Your worst nightmare? We should show him your worst nightmare._

"What're you laughing at?" demanded the guard, aiming his gun at Daniel. "Answer me, freak!"

"No," Daniel muttered, but not to the guard. _Yes_. "No!" He clutched at his pounding head. The younger voice hissed within. _I won't We will._

The guard shrieked and fell to his knees, scrabbling futilely at the snake-like creature suddenly biting into the back of his neck. "Get it off! Get it off!" he howled desperately. Daniel froze, seeing his own worst fear projected onto this man as the Goa'uld took him, feeling for himself the pain as the parasite brutalized its way into his spinal cord, insinuating itself into his very thoughts. "No!" he and the guard cried simultaneously, and then it was gone. _Worst nightmare indeed_.

As a crowd of people rushed up, drawn by the screams, Daniel knelt by the guard. "Are you okay?" he began to ask, only to be forced back against the wall by a gun in his face.

"What the hell was that, freak?!" screamed the guard, scrambling back, still aiming the gun with a shaking hand. "What did you do to me?!"

"I'm sorry... It was an accident!" _It was not_.

"You know, chief, harassment's against the law," came a clear voice, and the teacher from earlier, Mr. Parker, pushed to the front of the throng. "Nothing was damaged, no one was hurt. This is a public place. This guy has a right to be here, no matter what his genetic make-up is."

"Who asked you? You some sort of mutant-lover? Muties ain't got rights," scowled the guard, lunging to his feet to tower over the relatively small teacher.

"According to the American Constitution, yes, they do. They have exactly the same rights that you do. And you can be charged with attempted assault for threatening him like this. Also," he added quietly. "I am not aware that security in this museum is licensed to be lethally armed." He held out a cell phone, his thumb on the call button. "Do we need to involve the police?"

Two more guards arrived during the tense moment that followed, and Daniel was slightly startled to see the small teacher edge unobtrusively between him and them, as if he intended to defend him physically, which would have been funny in a less un-funny situation. Daniel himself probably had a good fifty pounds of muscle mass on the slight Mr. Parker, and the guards were even larger.

But one of the newly arrived guards, the one with an extra chevron on his sleeve, out his hand on the first one's shoulder. "Come on, Bryson. I need to have a word with you." His voice held a quiet, no-nonsense command. Bryson glared at Daniel and Parker for a moment longer, then allowed himself to be led away and relinquished the weapon. Watching them go, Parker shrugged and turned to Daniel, offering him a hand up.

"Than you," Daniel said, taking it and standing up. "I'm sorry for... all of this. I'm just going to leave."

"Don't let him get to you," said Parker quietly with a supportive half-smile. "Jerks like that aren't worth listening to." _You should listen to him_. "You seemed pretty interested in my lecture. Why don't you stick around and hear the rest of it?"

"Thanks, but I'm quite obviously not welcome here." Daniel looked around at the gathered crowd, where expressions ran the gamut from helpful to hostile. _Oh, stay_. "No!" Daniel whispered fiercely to the younger voice. Without another word, he turned and ran from the museum.

Back at the hotel, Daniel locked his door, shut the blinds, reached for the phone and froze. His fingers were inches from the receiver, but he couldn't bridge that last space. He'd been planning to call Jack, but something was stopping him. _Not me_. What would he tell him? "Hey Jack," he murmured to the silent room, sarcastically rehearsing the call. "Um, I've been having a great time here in New York. Oh, and I found out that I'm a mutant, I have this awful, sarcastic, _voice _living in my head (actually it sounds a lot like you), and I think I might have single-handedly declassified the existence of the Goa'uld today, but no one will believe me. Oh, and I saw my parents die. Again. So, did you catch any fish?" _Don't forget that he doesn't believe that mutants exist_. Well, Jack didn't believe in ghosts either, and Daniel's been that too. He rolled his eyes, falling back onto the bed with a sigh. "Yeah. That will keep my life from being ruined." Taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose, he reached out anyway and picked up his cell phone, hitting the second number on the speed dial. Jack picked up on the second ring with a busy-sounding "General O'Neill here."

"Jack, it's me. Sorry I didn't call last night. I'm definitely going to need to bring the girl back to the mountain. The girl Captain Reels told me about. Did you get the notes I left you?" Automatically, he lowered his voice. "She's speaking Asgard, Jack. And she's a clone. Yeah. Of someone named 'Mia Thompson.' Her name is Asa, by the way. There's something very unusual about all of this.

"What? Yes, I do think that Loki's involved, but she says she's been left her for about five years, with this Mia person taking care of her. We need to find her too, and soon.

"No, Asa doesn't know where she is. She left her in a dumpster sometime the day before yesterday, saying that she was going to get help. When she didn't come back, Spi-, er, someone found her and brought her to the ER." Daniel found himself with the typical reluctance to name a superhero in serious conversation. "She did spend an extended period of time with an Asgard, probably Loki. She only knows him as 'Father.' Well, as Postos, which is Asgard for father. They're both security risks, especially Mia, since she also speaks English. But I have no way of finding her." Daniel took a deep breath while listening to his friend's reply. "No, I don't know what the NID found. I didn't get a chance to ask her. Yes, it was them. Asa knew the name of the organization. She said that Mia got her out. Yes. I'll see you tonight."

He hung up, letting his hand linger on the phone for a while. _You didn't tell him_. The younger voice did not sound surprised. Daniel rolled his eyes and went into the bathroom to wash his face. He felt gritty, contaminated somehow. "No," he said at last while he dried his hands on the white towel. "Happy?"

Now the voice sounded surprised. _I don't know. Are we?_

"No," Daniel said sharply. "No, we are not happy. No, _I _am not happy. I'm a..." He couldn't say it. The voice could. _A mutant_. Helplessly, he nodded. He sat in silence for a long time, until at last his archaeologist's curiosity got the better of him. "So," he asked again, calmly. "Who are you?" _I don't know if there's an answer to that. Dr. Mackenzie would name me schizophrenia, or possibly a severe disassociate syndrome. I am neither. I am a small, undetectable anomaly in your hippocampus, caused by the presence of the X-gene in your genetic make-up. Technically speaking, I am your primary mutation._

"What did you, did we do at the museum?"

_Let me ask you a question, Daniel. How far back can you remember?_

Automatically, Daniel started to say since he was two, maybe three, but the voice's invisible presence made him actually try. Sitting on his bed in the empty hotel room, he closed his eyes and probed his mind. "I think," he said slowly, feeling a vague echo of pressure and a burst of light. "I think I remember being born." The voice said nothing, skeptically. Daniel tried harder.

Suddenly, he found himself a helpless observer as the world spun backwards. The city he was in faded in a breath's time and he found himself seeing a greater picture. Cities, nations fell and rose. He saw the ancient Egyptians bury Ra's gate, he witnessed the Asgard visiting the neophyte human race, and then it stopped. He sat on his bed in his empty hotel room, blinking as his eyes readjusted to the dim light. "I, I..." he stuttered. "I can't be remembering that."

_You can. Because of me, you remember everything you've every learned as if you were there. And you can learn anything, even if it's hidden. And now, you can bring other with you into those memories. You stand witness, Daniel. And if I could truly feel sympathy, you would have it._


End file.
